Why rebuilding the Florida football program has very familiar feel for Jon Sumrall

If there’s one thing Jon Sumrall is known for, it’s his ability to turn sub-par, ‘ok’ programs and teams who entered seasons in a rebuild and building them into championship-caliber teams.

He took Troy from being a team that went 5-7, 5-6, and 5-7 three years in a row to a team that went 12-2 and 11-2 in back-to-back seasons and now has seven players in NFL training camps.

When he arrived at Tulane in 2024, they had had two-straight winning seasons with at least 11 wins. However, when Sumrall arrived to the Green Wave, they were undergoing a rebuild as many seniors graduated, opted for the NFL Draft, or opted for the transfer portal. As a result, Sumrall has to overhaul the entire Tulane roster with his own players.

With Florida coming off of a 4-8 season (3-4 under Napier) that was proceeded by Florida going 8-5 in 2024, 5-7 in 2023, and 6-7 in 2022, there’s an expectation from Gator fans that Sumrall can turn things around in Gainesville the way he did at Troy and the way he kept Tulane’s winning-ways alive with a majority new roster in 2024.

When asked about his philosophy regarding taking over a new/ rebuilding program for a third time, Sumrall described each situation as different, but reiterated the fact that you have to do what it takes to be great. There are no shortcuts.

“Sometimes you walk into situations and think, man, it’s going to be really adverse and you’re not set up to have immediate success, and you find it because maybe there is more pieces in place to be successful than you realize,” he said. “Sometimes you walk into a situation and it’s been going good, like, man, we got more work to do here than I thought.”

Whatever the situation might be, it’s about evaluating the field in front of you and doing what it takes to become a program that a team is capable of becoming.

“Every situation you walk into I think you have to evaluate, okay, what needs to be recalibrated and what’s been going good. There have been some really good things going on at the University of Florida before my arrival, there have,” he stated. 

Jon Sumrall has seen this type of rebuild before

Where Florida needs improvement is winning games.

“4-8 last year is not okay at the University of Florida. We got to fix that,” stated Sumrall.

And that’s the expectation of Gator fans, is that Sumrall will be the golden piece of the puzzle that can turn things around and give the Gator Nation the winning atmosphere back.

“You just try to evaluate, okay, what’s been working and find the right things you have to maybe address,” said Sumrall.

The “Gator Standard” set by Steve Spurrier is something that will forever be important to the University of Florida and its fans. It’s something that hasn’t been lived up even closely in the last several years. Sumrall now has the task of returning ‘The Standard’ to the football field and getting Florida back to Bowl eligibility and into the college football playoff. 

“We can’t waste a day,” said Sumrall. “We’ve nowhere near arrived. We can’t waste a practice rep. Everything we do right now matters, it’s all counting towards our development,” he stated with emphasis. “The urgency we have to do things with, it has to feel different from what maybe people are comfortable at times,” he reiterated.

He described Florida as having a ‘long way to go,’ yet his expectation is to “win every day.”

Time will tell if Sumrall can pull off a program turnaround for a third straight program, with this one being an SEC team with all eyes on them in the Florida Gators and in the atmosphere of a rowdy Swamp on Saturdays.

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